Sleep deprivation can have serious effects on a person’s health. It can affect a person physically and mentally. It will affect your ability to think, deal with stress, and keep your immune system healthy. Concentration can drop and memory can become impaired from long term sleep deprivation. Problem solving skills are disabled and decision making skills are compromised as well. Getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night is what most people need to be well rested and healthy.
Long term sleep deprivation can also cause hallucinations in severe cases. Slurred speech, depression, irritability, and slowed reactions times can happen as well. You can also get hypertension and heart disease too from sleep deprivation.
Older people tend to be more susceptible to sleep deprivation than younger people. Hormone changes and physical changes that happen as we age are likely the cause of this. For example menopausal women are going through many changes and sleep deprivation is very common among women. Most problems that older people have is the ability to get deep restorative sleep.